Pharos

by Guy Haley

  Dantioch gasped and settled back, his strength finally leaving him.

  ‘But I am glad, Alexis. I am glad to have been. I am glad to have known you. It is something that friendship can exist at all in this universe of terror and betrayal.’

  ‘Quiet now. You must save your strength!’

  Dantioch’s scarred mouth cracked into a smile. ‘I have no strength left. I have done my duty, and I am no longer ashamed.’ His back arched in pain, and he gasped. ‘All hail the Emperor of Mankind, still beloved by all. May His dream be saved, even if we cannot.’

  A long rattling breath escaped him, and his face stilled. Dantioch’s body went limp in Polux’s arms.

  ‘Barabas!’ cried Polux. ‘Barabas! Brother!’

  He bent his head and wept for his enemy, his friend. Tenderly he crossed Dantioch’s arms upon his chest, as befit a champion of the Legions who had fallen in service to the Imperium.

  The warriors of Ultramar would find Polux there, hours later, his head still bowed in mourning.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Aftermath

  Hero of the Imperium

  Emperor resurgent

  The after-light of the Pharos burned brighter than a dying star in the aether. With a soundless pulse, it had torn outwards in every direction, bursting from the apertures of the great mountain. A raging pulse of electromagnetic energy came with it, destroying every electrical item in Sothopolis. Armoured suits locked or went limp. Lumen globes burst. Reactors overloaded.

  On into space the front raced, blasting through the Night Lords fleet in wave of blinding light. Systems went offline. Ships drifted, at the mercy of Sotha’s gravitational pull.

  Out, out from Sotha the pulse burned, driving back the Ruinstorm from the fringes of the system, piercing the very veil of reality. In the warp it flared brighter than the Astronomican, quelling for a moment the raging tempest.

  Roboute Guilliman’s beleaguered fleet battled against deadly currents, lost in the madness of the empyrean. There they might have remained for all eternity, had the Pharos not flared so brightly in that instant. Within their scrying domes and isolation blisters, the Navigators of the Ultramarines caught the glare of the dying beacon, locked onto it, and redirected their vessels out of the warp, directly into the Sothan System.

  Gunfire still rattled in the lower halls of the Pharos as Roboute Guilliman himself strode into the ruin of Primary Location Alpha, his Invictarus guard at his back. Corvo’s men had secured the area. Half a dozen functioning lumens had been found, and set up around the devastated cavern, but their light was dim – incapable of illuminating such an alien space, all they did was accentuate the wreckage cluttering the floor.

  Teeth gritted against the pain of his wound, Corvo stood to attention. His armour was failing, the wound in his side was still a hot stripe of pain, but he would not appear weak before his primarch.

  ‘The hero of Astagar proves his worth again.’ Guilliman saluted Corvo, then frowned with concern. ‘Stand at ease, Lucretius. You look ready to die.’

  Corvo settled gratefully against the wall.

  ‘Report,’ said Guilliman.

  ‘The remainder of my company have made landfall to the south. They are pursuing fugitive elements of the Night Lords into the forest. They will not last long. There are still a number of Night Lords elements scattered through the mountain, but most of them are low on ammunition, and in broken plate. I have the upper levels and Primary Location Ultra under heavy guard. My own warriors’ equipment is non-functioning, but relief forces from my flotilla are already joining them, and we’ll begin the push to clear the Pharos out shortly. I did not order the detonation of the Mechanicum machines, and the quantum engines are whole. If only I were quicker, I might have been able to prevent the destruction here.’

  ‘What is done is done, Lucretius. Dantioch acted as he thought best. The Pharos remains in our hands, although I fear it will never function again.’ He fell into troubled thought. A bright flash from outside lit up the chamber, and more followed. The sky boomed louder than thunder, a crackle of explosions dainty as celebratory pyrotechnics, then more titanic rumblings. They glanced upward.

  ‘The Night Lords fleet is in tatters,’ said Guilliman. ‘Many of their vessels appear to have been disabled by the Pharos’ final light pulse. Several have relit their reactors and fled, those few that remain are outmatched and will pay the ultimate price for their treachery. Five of their ships are already down, several thousand of their legionaries fallen. I shall have precise calculations soon. A poor score. Too many of their craft have escaped. I had wished to annihilate them all.’

  He shook his head in disappointment.

  ‘What a disaster. Our operations here will take time that we simply do not have to re-establish, and the colony is devastated. Nevertheless, Captain Corvo, you have done well.’

  Corvo made the sign of the aquila. ‘You honour me, my lord.’

  ‘Captain Varus, Captain Antoninus,’ said Guilliman. ‘Detail your companies to finish the purge of the mountain. Corvo, you are hereby relieved. Return to your ships. Rest. Repair. We have won this battle, but learned a valuable lesson. I will not be caught out like this again.’

  ‘Are my ships not required for the pursuit? I stand ready to mete out vengeance, my lord.’

  ‘After this conversation, Lucretius, you will take my personal transport and go directly to the apothecarion aboard my ship where my own physicians will tend to you personally. That is my wish and my order.’ He sighed tiredly. ‘But first to other matters. How is our friend Captain Polux?’

  They looked over at the Imperial Fist sitting immobile by his friend in the centre of the chamber. Someone had draped a blanket around his shoulders, but otherwise he remained as he had been found, motionless with grief.

  ‘Refusing food, water, or help. He has not moved since we came here, but sits in vigil.’

  ‘Well, that will not do. Polux!’ Guilliman called, raising his voice.

  Polux looked up.

  ‘I command you to rise, Captain Alexis Polux of the Imperial Fists,’ ordered Guilliman.

  He stood, the blanket slipping from his shoulders. ‘My lord Guilliman.’

  ‘It is time you let us take care of the Warsmith. We shall commemorate his deeds this evening, as night falls, in a manner befitting a true hero of the Imperium.’

  The Imperial Fist nodded dumbly.

  Suzerein guards came to him carrying a bier. They made to raise Dantioch up, but Polux stopped them.

  ‘No,’ said Polux softly but dangerously. ‘None shall touch him. I will carry him, for he was my brother.’

  The sun sank weakly through the battle’s haze, the fog of conflict clung thick on the sides of Mount Pharos. Thin towers of smoke built themselves from the forest’s ashes. The age-old peat of the lower slopes had caught in several locations, and would likely burn for years.

  Patchily bald, blackened, covered with the bright stone scars of landslides, the mountain stood strong nonetheless.

  Upon the high promontory a company of warriors gathered. The fifty-three surviving members of the Aegida Company, Captain Polux, his Lightkeepers, the last four men of the Sothan Auxilia, and Beta-Phi-97.

  The sun shone light filtered red by the smog upon their wargear. Three servitors worked their way down the line of the Aegida company. From their chests extended small paint units, jet-brushes neat as an insect’s folded mandibles that worked with precise, hissing passes over the Ultima of each Ultramarine as Roboute Guilliman addressed them.

  ‘Our losses have been great, but we know victory,’ the primarch said. ‘The One Hundred and Ninety-Ninth Aegida Company will be reconstituted and reinforced. Captain Polux will raise a greater fortress upon the peak of Mount Pharos. Never again will Sotha fall. Let it stand forever as a bulwark against the Emperor’s enemies. The Night Lords came against us here, an
d were found wanting. Many of them are dead, the rest flee back to their dark places. Every foe who dares this world will face the same fate – this I swear.

  ‘For all of you, my sons, I have marks of recognition for your sacrifice. But we of the Legion did not fight alone. Without the bravery and fortitude of the colonists of Sotha, all would have been lost. They warred alongside us, guided us, and died with us. The bodies of the Sothan First Auxilia, First Platoon, shall be interred with all honour in a tomb within the Garden of Remembrance on Macragge, where a monument will be raised in the honour of one Sergeant Mericus Giraldus and his troopers, whose honourable silence in the face of great pain bought vital time for Captain Corvo. In further recognition of their sacrifice, henceforth, the men of the One Hundred and Ninety-Ninth Aegida Company will bear the crossed scythes as a mark of respect and honour to the common men of Sotha who aided them in this darkest of hours.’

  As the servitors worked their way down the line of battered legionaries, they left this new emblem framed by the spreading horns of the Ultima. The blades of the scythes stood guard over the pure white of Ultramar’s sigil.

  Guilliman went to stand before Oberdeii and his surviving comrades.

  ‘Neophytes, you have been tested in battle, and you have not been found wanting. You are all to proceed to your final stage implantation. Following this, you shall be full battle-brothers of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth.’

  He took a step back and bowed his head to the young warriors, who shifted both in unease and intense pride. The surviving Space Marines, their new brethren, saluted them.

  Guilliman went on. ‘Neophyte Oberdeii, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Legion Reconnaissance Sergeant, effective immediately.’

  Oberdeii blinked hard. Tebecai could not suppress a pleased smile at the look on his face.

  And so it went on, each man and transhuman solemnly decorated by the Lord of Ultramar, as the smokes of destruction smeared themselves across the pristine skies of the world.

  ‘We march for Macragge!’ shouted the assembled warriors, Ultramarine and human alike. ‘Courage and honour!’

  ‘And now to the peak,’ said the primarch, turning his solemn gaze to the highest rampart of the Emperor’s Watch.

  Up stone steps lined by Invictarus Suzereins they filed, through the broken gates to the redoubt, thence to the wide platform surmounting the top. At the far end, away from the gun emplacement and nested arrays of astronomical instruments, was a pyre of dried quicktree wood.

  Atop it, his armour battered but his face serene, lay the body of Warsmith Barabas Dantioch.

  Guilliman stopped by the pyre, his great stature allowing him to look down upon the dead warrior.

  ‘You have not replaced his mask,’ he said.

  ‘It was a symbol of shame to him,’ said Polux. ‘He wore it as a constant reminder of his Legion’s betrayal. He no longer has anything to be ashamed of.’

  ‘That he does not.’

  Guilliman held out his hand. Captain Casmir placed a golden torch into his grip, a hot flame burning true in the horn at the end. Guilliman presented it to Polux.

  ‘The honour should be yours.’

  ‘My lord, if it pleases you – it would a far greater honour done to Barabas if it were you, the mightiest of the Emperor’s sons, who sends him on his way.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Guilliman, nodding in deference. With a crackle of parting wood, he thrust the torch deep into the quicktree pyre. They stepped back as the fire caught. Tongues of flame curled around the body of Dantioch, blackening his armour, licking at his scarred flesh amidst pillars of scented smoke that carried heavenwards.

  ‘Company!’ bellowed the foremost of Guilliman’s guard.

  ‘So passes Dantioch, hero of the Imperium!’ they roared, and discharged their boltguns. The weapons boomed as they launched their projectiles, the propellant igniting and sending them fizzing into the sky, banging again as they breached the sound barrier.

  ‘So passes Dantioch, hero of the Imperium!’

  ‘So passes Dantioch, hero of the Imperium!’

  The sky darkened. The pyre of Barabas Dantioch bathed his comrades in heat and light. The last rays of the sun struck the Pharos, red beams glowing in the cave mouths of flank and peak.

  No return light shone in reply, and nor did it ever again. The song of the mountain was done, and night fell on Imperium Secundus for true.

  Primary Location Beta bustled with activity. A twin chamber shaped like an hourglass, it had been identified by Dantioch sometime in his early experiments as a potential tuning stage before later being abandoned in favour of other newly found locations. It was shabby, dank, and damaged by the battle. Broken machines were piled in a corner, the walls riven with fine cracks. Only now that Primary Location Alpha had been destroyed had it been pressed into active service.

  The image of Sanguinius jumped and popped like a bad pict feed. Tech-adepts hurried about, adjusting dials and power feeds, attempting to stabilise it.

  ‘The connection will not last long, my lord,’ said one. ‘You must be brief.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Guilliman. ‘Polux?’

  Polux stood at the centre of the new tuning stage, face pale with effort, sweat beading on his forehead. ‘I am doing what I can, but I am not Dantioch, and the Pharos is not functioning as it did before.’

  Sanguinius sat in all his regal pomp upon an engraved throne that had been set up in the remains of the Chapel of Remembrance. His eyes followed the Lord of Ultramar as he took his position on the stage in front of Polux. They faced each other across the stars, two demigods enthroned alike in ruin.

  ‘Leave us!’ Sanguinius called to the Mechanicum personnel in the Pharos.

  ‘My lord,’ said the newly-appointed magos. ‘My acolytes and I are needed to–’

  ‘I said leave us,’ repeated Sanguinius icily.

  ‘Polux must stay,’ Guilliman insisted.

  ‘Very well.’

  All but Polux and a score of mindless servitors dutifully filed out of the room.

  Only when the room was clear did Sanguinius speak. ‘Brother. Curze was here.’

  ‘What?’ cried Guilliman in alarm. ‘Are you harmed?’

  ‘No. He came to talk, or so he said.’

  ‘Did he?’

  Sanguinius shifted on his throne. His heavy robes rustled. ‘He did, although he nearly killed Azkaellon and slaughtered many of my most trusted Sanguinary Guard.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Absolution? Acceptance? Who knows? I do not think even he truly understands what he wants. But he did say something, brother, amid all his self-pitying babble, that I cannot put from my mind.’

  ‘The poor philosophy of the insane and the inane,’ said Guilliman. ‘Pay no heed to it – he has the faculties of an anguished youth, and we must all suffer his pretensions to omniscience.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Or perhaps not.’

  He paused, weighing his next words. The two brothers regarded each other.

  ‘Roboute, I hereby summon you back to my side on Macragge.’

  Guilliman’s smile went tight. ‘Brother? You summon me? That is quite a change of heart for you.’ He aimed for levity, but Sanguinius did not smile.

  ‘You must return,’ said Sanguinius. ‘I command it.’

  ‘Surely you have matters under control there? I have to set Sotha in order. The Pharos is badly damaged, the colony ruined. There is a chance we can set it right, and Imperium Secundus will be safe once more. I will be a week, that is all. Give me a week.’

  ‘No,’ said Sanguinius firmly. ‘You will come back to Macragge immediately.’

  Guilliman pursed his lips. ‘And this is a command?’

  ‘Issued with the authority you yourself bestowed. You made me emperor, Roboute, so either abandon the chara
de or make it real. Before you return, you will find the Lion using the Pharos, and demand his return from wherever he has gone. No excuses, no obfuscation. Give him no leeway to misinterpret or elaborate on what I say. It is a command to both of you – return immediately. Curze is here, the Pharos was nearly destroyed. It is time our Lord Protector took upon himself the full burden of his role. Find him, and bring him back here to me. Now.’

  Their eyes and wills locked. For a long, tense moment, it appeared that Guilliman would defy the one he had proclaimed the new emperor of all mankind.

  The theoreticals of what that would mean flickered through his powerful mind; the collapse of all that they had built. The end of Imperium Secundus and ultimately the fall of Ultramar itself. At its best, the result would be dissension and a fracturing of the effort against Horus, at worst strife or even open war could erupt between their Legions.

  There was only one viable practical. The last and most inevitable of practicals.

  He bowed low, never imagining that such a gesture could be so hard to perform.

  ‘Of course, my lord emperor. Your will be done.’

  Primarch Roboute Guilliman, from Dantioch’s sketchbook

  EPILOGUE

  Hunger

  Far beyond the fringes of the galaxy there was naught but endless black.

  Past the last few stray stars plying their lonely track through the cold night, past the dead worlds and the fragments of galactic collisions billions of years gone, past the probes sent out by extinct races recorded in no history… past all that and beyond, there was a night sea studded with the diamond islands of distant, lonely galaxies.

  Though incomprehensibly vast, this sea was not empty. Great behemoths of the deep lurked there.

  Into the eternal blackness, a flash of quantum energy shone out at many times the speed of light; a brief flare, milliseconds in duration, projecting from an unremarkable spiral of stars.

  It was not missed.

  In the darkness, something of limitless hunger stirred in a slumber that had lasted for aeons. A million frozen and unblinking eyes saw the flash, tripping cascades of stimuli. Their purpose served, the eyes died.